Post by DefyingGravity on Feb 21, 2019 14:57:00 GMT
The majority of the current Rocks fanbase have probably supported the club since the Sterling Davis coaching era of 2007-2017, myself included. Sterling was the first coach many of us saw. Then along came Tony Garbelotto and assistant coach turned (now ex) head coach Darryl Wood. Right now we are waiting for the announcement of our third head coach in two seasons.
A couple of questions have arisen in BBL land as a result of the above scenarios. Club loyalty, curses and Duncan being, well Duncan are probably the main ones. The following is not meant to be a propaganda piece on why every fan should support the club’s decisions. I’ve merely written it to get my thoughts out there and to perhaps start up a little discussion.
Let’s start at the beginning. Sterling Davis was, and I imagine still is, an awesome guy. I’ve never met a Rocks fan who has said otherwise. He’s a genuinely nice guy who always had time to chat. Plus, anyone who looks *that* good in a suit must be pretty special. However, nice doesn’t always win you trophies. We had Sterling as coach for 10 years and sure, he gave us some cracking memories and got us to some finals, but we never won anything. It’s not often in sports that an unsuccessful club keep the same coach for so long. This is why I will always back Duncan’s decision to remove Sterling as coach.
The backlash from that decision was huge. Fans loved Sterling. The only problem is many fans’ commitment to Sterling made them blind to his failings as a basketball coach. I agree that perhaps the way Sterling was sacked could have been handled differently, but in the end I genuinely believe that the fans would still have been raging and some may still have labelled Duncan as public enemy number 1. The fact that fans never got to say goodbye to Sterling also doesn’t bother me too much. The other sport I follow closely is ice hockey and when coaches get sacked there isn’t an open top bus parade to celebrate the failings. Basketball shouldn’t be any different, if we are to think of ourselves as a professional sports club that is.
In comes Tony Garbelotto as head coach on a 2 year deal. I didn’t know much about the guy so of course I did a bit of research. His list of credentials was long and included the head coaching role at Everton Tigers in 2008, leading them to five trophies (including a treble in 2010-2011) before coaching in Vietnam. Pretty impressive, but I will always remember a couple of quotes other basketball fans said to me including “Put it this way, you wouldn’t buy a second hand car off him”.
However with that niggling thought put to the back of my mind, Tony G got the team off to a decent start in the league. People didn’t like his side court style, but maybe that was because they were so used to Sterling. Side note: Tony G does not pull off a suit the same way that Sterling did!
Remember the second hand car? Turns out you really wouldn’t want to buy one off him as apparent money issues caused Tony to resign / get sacked / whatever it was from not one, but three jobs all at once. One assumes that no fans had any issues with that decision.
Making the decision to let Darryl lead the team for the rest of the season split fans’ opinions, including my own. In the end it probably wasn’t the worst idea. Darryl had been working alongside Tony since the start and knew the players. There wouldn’t need to be any settling in period.
However allowing Darryl to continue as head coach into this current season is where I’m stuck. I initially thought it was a good idea. The club were giving him the chance. A chance to recruit his own team and embed his own basketball personality on it. After all, how many chances did Sterling get? However he didn’t recruit his own team. How much of a say the Scottish players have had and currently have on club decisions and signings will never sit right with me. There is no denying the fact that Darryl was an inexperienced coach and despite a cup final appearance and a good run of form lately, Darryl messed up. Assisted by his players too I might add. It wasn’t long before I thought recruiting Darryl for another year was a mistake.
The timing of Darryl’s sacking is a little surprising. Personally I thought he should have gone sooner but perhaps the club were sticking with him to see if he could turn things around. In a way he did repay the favour, but a poor performance in the BBL trophy semi-finals maybe sealed his fate. You would think that if the club didn’t release him now, then they certainly would have at the end of the season.
As for our new coach, well we need to wait and see. It is tipped to be Robbie Peers, and that name has been getting mentioned for a while. It may be true that the club were in talks with Peers long before they sacked Darryl, but as fans we can only speculate on that.
Rocks fans deserve a club that not only can they be rightfully proud of, but also a club that shows a high level of professionalism. Waiting for our third head coach in two seasons might suggest the club are not quite at that stage, but would anyone really argue that releasing the above mentioned coaches was the wrong choice?
If our new coach has enough experience, doesn’t try screw us over and signs a team that will work hard and are exciting to watch, then I think that is a good enough start. I regularly criticise the club but when it comes to the most recent coaching decisions, well I’m very much on their side of the court.
A couple of questions have arisen in BBL land as a result of the above scenarios. Club loyalty, curses and Duncan being, well Duncan are probably the main ones. The following is not meant to be a propaganda piece on why every fan should support the club’s decisions. I’ve merely written it to get my thoughts out there and to perhaps start up a little discussion.
Let’s start at the beginning. Sterling Davis was, and I imagine still is, an awesome guy. I’ve never met a Rocks fan who has said otherwise. He’s a genuinely nice guy who always had time to chat. Plus, anyone who looks *that* good in a suit must be pretty special. However, nice doesn’t always win you trophies. We had Sterling as coach for 10 years and sure, he gave us some cracking memories and got us to some finals, but we never won anything. It’s not often in sports that an unsuccessful club keep the same coach for so long. This is why I will always back Duncan’s decision to remove Sterling as coach.
The backlash from that decision was huge. Fans loved Sterling. The only problem is many fans’ commitment to Sterling made them blind to his failings as a basketball coach. I agree that perhaps the way Sterling was sacked could have been handled differently, but in the end I genuinely believe that the fans would still have been raging and some may still have labelled Duncan as public enemy number 1. The fact that fans never got to say goodbye to Sterling also doesn’t bother me too much. The other sport I follow closely is ice hockey and when coaches get sacked there isn’t an open top bus parade to celebrate the failings. Basketball shouldn’t be any different, if we are to think of ourselves as a professional sports club that is.
In comes Tony Garbelotto as head coach on a 2 year deal. I didn’t know much about the guy so of course I did a bit of research. His list of credentials was long and included the head coaching role at Everton Tigers in 2008, leading them to five trophies (including a treble in 2010-2011) before coaching in Vietnam. Pretty impressive, but I will always remember a couple of quotes other basketball fans said to me including “Put it this way, you wouldn’t buy a second hand car off him”.
However with that niggling thought put to the back of my mind, Tony G got the team off to a decent start in the league. People didn’t like his side court style, but maybe that was because they were so used to Sterling. Side note: Tony G does not pull off a suit the same way that Sterling did!
Remember the second hand car? Turns out you really wouldn’t want to buy one off him as apparent money issues caused Tony to resign / get sacked / whatever it was from not one, but three jobs all at once. One assumes that no fans had any issues with that decision.
Making the decision to let Darryl lead the team for the rest of the season split fans’ opinions, including my own. In the end it probably wasn’t the worst idea. Darryl had been working alongside Tony since the start and knew the players. There wouldn’t need to be any settling in period.
However allowing Darryl to continue as head coach into this current season is where I’m stuck. I initially thought it was a good idea. The club were giving him the chance. A chance to recruit his own team and embed his own basketball personality on it. After all, how many chances did Sterling get? However he didn’t recruit his own team. How much of a say the Scottish players have had and currently have on club decisions and signings will never sit right with me. There is no denying the fact that Darryl was an inexperienced coach and despite a cup final appearance and a good run of form lately, Darryl messed up. Assisted by his players too I might add. It wasn’t long before I thought recruiting Darryl for another year was a mistake.
The timing of Darryl’s sacking is a little surprising. Personally I thought he should have gone sooner but perhaps the club were sticking with him to see if he could turn things around. In a way he did repay the favour, but a poor performance in the BBL trophy semi-finals maybe sealed his fate. You would think that if the club didn’t release him now, then they certainly would have at the end of the season.
As for our new coach, well we need to wait and see. It is tipped to be Robbie Peers, and that name has been getting mentioned for a while. It may be true that the club were in talks with Peers long before they sacked Darryl, but as fans we can only speculate on that.
Rocks fans deserve a club that not only can they be rightfully proud of, but also a club that shows a high level of professionalism. Waiting for our third head coach in two seasons might suggest the club are not quite at that stage, but would anyone really argue that releasing the above mentioned coaches was the wrong choice?
If our new coach has enough experience, doesn’t try screw us over and signs a team that will work hard and are exciting to watch, then I think that is a good enough start. I regularly criticise the club but when it comes to the most recent coaching decisions, well I’m very much on their side of the court.
